A Randomised Controlled Trial of Infiltration versus Low Dose Subarachnoid Block in Hydrocele Surgery.

Background: Hydrocele surgery is a short surgical procedure requiring an anaesthetic technique that allows good surgical anaesthesia, short recovery time and minimal side effects. This study was designed to compare the traditionally used technique of local infiltration block and subarachnoid block using 1% lidocaine with 25mcg of fentanyl in patients undergoing hydrocele surgery. Methods: Sixty ASA grade I and II patients of 18-60 years of age, scheduled for hydrocele surgery were randomly assigned to two groups of 30 patients each. Group C patients received local infiltration using 1% lidocaine (maximum upto 5mg /kg) while Group I patients received intrathecal injection of 1% lidocaine with 25 mcg of fentanyl (1.5 ml of 2% lidocaine + 1 ml of normal saline + 0.5 ml fentanyl). The subjects were assessed in terms of physiological variables, the quality of analgesia, and incidence of side effects as compared to local infiltration technique. Results: Patients in group C required significantly more number of fentanyl boluses for pain as compared to patients in group I. The most common problem encountered in any group was backache with an incidence of 16.6% in group I and 6.6% in group C. Pruritus was reported to be 13.3% in group I but was absent in group C (P<0.05). However, it was mild and did not require any medication. 23 patients in group I regarded their experience of the perioperative period as excellent as compared to only 5 patients in group C. Time to void and to meet discharge criteria was comparable in both the groups. Conclusion: We conclude that the use of smaller dose lidocaine-fentanyl combination in spinal anaesthesia provides potent and excellent quality of analgesia with limited side effects without prolonging recovery as compared to 1% lidocaine infiltration in patients of hydrocele surgery.

Odour avoidance learning in the larva of Drosophila melanogaster.

Drosophila larvae can be trained to avoid odours associated with electric shock. We describe here, an improved method of aversive conditioning and a procedure for decomposing learning retention curve that enables us to do a quantitative analysis of memory phases, short term (STM), middle term (MTM) and long term (LTM) as a function of training cycles. The same method of analysis when applied to learning mutants dunce, amnesiac, rutabaga and radish reveals memory defi cits characteristic of the mutant strains.

Proteins of the brain and body wall in larvae of Drosophila melanogaster.

Proteins of the brain and body wall cells of third instar larvae of Drosophila melanogaster have been examined by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. Out of over 600 [ 35 S ]-labelled peptide spots seen in brain or body wall extracts, 517 were common to both; 61 spots were unique to brain and 66 unique to muscle. Glycoproteins were identified by soaking the gels in radioactive iodinated Concanavalin-A. Forty four Con-Α binding glycoproteins were identifiable in the brain and 41 in the muscle extracts. Out of these, 8 glycoproteins of the brain and 8 of muscles appear to be tissue-specific.